Put a driver that works for him in Wilco Nienaber’s hands, and it can turn into a magic wand. Just as it did on Friday when he shot a six-under-par 65 in the second round of the DP World Tour’s Turkish Airlines Open to rocket to second place at the halfway mark in Antalya, Türkiye.
“I don’t think there’s a golf course where length doesn’t help, but helps even more when it goes straight as well,” said Nienaber. “We did some adjustments with Ping on Monday, and I am playing with a totally different driver. It’s obviously doing the job.”
The result was seven birdies and just a single bogey as he reached nine-under-par at the Regnum Carya.
Nienaber will start moving day two strokes behind the leader, Martin Couvra from France, who added a five-under 66 to his opening 65 to reach 11-under. One stroke behind Nienaber in third on his own was China’s Haotong Li, who also had a six-under 65 in the second round.
“Early on, I thought it was going to be pretty tricky,” said Nienaber of his round which had an early bogey on the fourth when he pushed his tee shot way right. Despite putting his second on the green, he contrived to three-putt.
Perhaps that was a function of putting on afternoon greens, of which Li said, “I think the grass grew up a little bit, felt like my hair. Sometimes it doesn’t go where I want it to.”
Whatever the case, for the rest of the round, Nienaber putted well. “I guess every week if you putt well, you’ll be in the mix,” he said. “The way I play, if I have a good putting week, I know I’ll be close to making a breakthrough. If I can do more of the same, it will be great.”
More of the same means being able to pull driver on the tees where he should and trusting that things go the way he likes, and the way Wilco fans like even more. It all seemed to fall into place in Friday’s round. “On the mental side I’ve worked through a few things in the past couple of weeks,” Nienaber said. “I’m in a better space mentally again. Sorted a lot of personal stuff out the past few weeks, and with my game back to a good level, I’m feeling good on a personal level too. I managed my game really well today, and the result was a great round.”
An indication of how things fell into place was the way he handled the 10th hole, which served up 41 bogeys, 17 doubles, four triples and a quadruple – and only 14 birdies.
“Everybody struggled on the 10th hole, I birdied that,” laughed Nienaber. “The key to that was simple, really. Just three really good shots. I hit a really good tee-shot, then a nine-iron to eight feet and holed the putt.”
The man who shared the lead after the first round, Robin Williams, shared some insight into the 10th hole after his second round of one-under 70 took him to seven-under and a share of fourth with Todd Clements of England, and Germany’s Yannik Paul and Tiger Christensen.
“The 10th is tough,” said Williams. “It’s over 500 yards, and the wind is usually coming a little into or off the left.
“The fairways is a max of 25 or 30 yards wide, and you’ve got water all down the left. I think the members play it as a par-five. Everyone is hitting it in the right trees just because they’re scared of the water. The trees aren’t too bad if you get lucky with a gap, but you’re left with at least a six- or seven-iron in to a small, undulating green. It’s just difficult. I think it’s going to play over-par for the whole week. If you make pars there, you’re really gaining on the field.”
While he didn’t gain on the field ahead of the 36-hole mark, he was not unhappy with his three birdies and two bogeys. “Things were almost going a little too well yesterday,” he said. “Today wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the same as yesterday, so I just had to kind of keep it together and put myself in the hunt for the weekend. I tried to not make big numbers and blow myself out of it. Hopefully, the outs can drop tomorrow and Sunday.
“The putting didn’t feel different from yesterday. Yesterday, they went in, and today they were just lipping out or going very close. I didn’t hit it particularly close to the flag compared to yesterday, so I left myself a lot of long putts. But if today can be the worst score that I have, I think I’ll be good.”
He was happy to bogey the final hole of the day. “The birdie on 18 really give me some confidence and momentum to have a crack this weekend,” said Williams. “Luckily, the wind has been down the past two days, so I just smacked driver over the water, which I don’t think most guys can do, so I had an advantage there. It was a front flag today and I had 90 yards in, left myself under the hole and made a nice putt there from seven or eight feet up the hill.”
Three other South Africans made the cut: reigning Investec South African Open champion Dylan Naidoo, Jayden Schaper and Dylan Frittelli. The trio clocked in on three-under, just eight shots off the pace.
“I played really well yesterday and just had a few hiccups coming home, but I feel my game was rounding back to what I want it to be today,” said Naidoo of his three-under 68. “With not much between the leaders and me, I’ll just go out there tomorrow and shoot a good score and see where it puts me.”
Frittelli, who was runner-up in Türkiye to Justin Rose in 2017, had three birdies and a bogey on his way to a two-under-par 69, while Schaper overcame a double-bogey on the 13th after starting his round on the 10th with five birdies on his opening nine and one more on the homeward nine.
“I hit a really poor tee-shot on 13, and then hit quite a good second, but it clipped a light pole. You don’t hear about that too often, as we don’t play too many courses that have light poles. So that was unlucky, and I ended up making double there.
“After that, I knew I had to fire to get myself back into the tournament. I made birdies on 14 and 15, and saved par with a really good momentum-saving putt on 16. When I birdied 17 and 18, I had pretty much done what was needed to get myself back into the tournament,” he added.
Jacques Kruyswijk, Justin Harding, Yurav Premlall, Casey Jarvis, Ockie Strydom, Zander Lombard, Louis Albertse, Ryan van Velzen, Justin Walters and Deon Germishuys all missed the cut.